Significance of Varalakshmi Vrata

Mother Parvati once asked Lord Shiva if there is any way by which women can obtain all auspiciousness and prosperity which will in turn help them to live happily with their husband, children, grandchildren, relatives and friends. Pleased by selfless desire of Parvati, Lord Shiva revealed to her Varalakshmi Vrata, performance of which can help all women to satisfy their wishes and lead a happy life full of joy.

This vrata is performed by married women on Friday that comes before Sharaavan Pournima. Vrata procedure itself is very short but the benefits it confers are great. It involves prayers to Goddess Mahalakshmi, consort of Lord Mahavishnu, to provide all things needed to lead happy and prosperous life.

They say that many women in the past have received grace of Goddess Mahalakshmi by performing this vrata and achieved all happiness.

The story of origin of this vrata goes like this. When Lord Shiva revealed this vrata to Parvati, he also narrated the story to illustrate its significance. There was a lady named Charumati who was very pious and devoted. Pleased with her devotion Goddess Lakshmi appeared in her dreams and instructed her to perform Varalaskhmi Vrat. Charumati, as per instructions of Goddess Laskhmi, performed vrat and invited all her neighbors to participate. Not only Charumati but all who participated in that vrat achieved happiness and prosperity.

Here are few links that have more stories of Varalaskhmi Vrata and its significance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varalakshmi_Vratam
http://www.hindu-blog.com/2009/07/story-of-varalakshmi-vratam.html

Rama Setu – great example of extraordinary team work

They say that if one wants to look for, in history of mankind, an example of marvelous engineering team work that marvels in all aspects of engineering and management then there is no better example than construction of bridge on the sea between Rameshwaram and Sri Lanka. In Ramayana itself the activity of construction of this bridge is described as achintya – unimaginable, asahyam – impossible to achieve, adbhutam – wonderful. It is mentioned that all those who witnessed that construction had their hair stand on end due to the amazement.

Everybody who was involved in construction had only one goal and that was to help Lord Rama in his effort to bring back his consort Sita who was abducted by Ravana.

When Rama came to know from Hanuman that Sita was indeed in Lanka, he started praying God of Ocean to help him cross the ocean. When ocean did not appear in person after repeated prayers by Rama, Rama got angry and resolved to dry up the ocean with his arrows. That very time God of Ocean appeared before Rama and told Rama that Nala, one of the vanaras (monkeys), is indeed son of Vishwakarma and he is capable of building bridge across ocean. God of Ocean promised that he will hold that bridge and then disappeared.

Then under the leadership of Nala all vanaras started constructing the bridge. Those huge bodied monkeys, while loudly chanting the name of Rama, literally uprooted huge mountains and trees and then transported them to the sight of bridge for use in the construction of bridge.

Those highly spirited moneys constructed the bridge in five days. Not only the monkeys but every animal was carrying equal spirit and finding joy in helping construction of bridge because it was being built for Rama and what could be better opportunity than opportunity of working for Lord Rama. 

There is a very interesting story about a squirrel. While supervising construction of bridge, Rama saw a squirrel who was first rolling on sand, wetting it’s body and then going down the bridge and doing this repeatedly. Astonished by this scene Rama tried to find out what that squirrel was doing and to his amazement he found that that squirrel was actually collecting sand by rolling on the sand and then taking it between rocks of bridge to act as glue.

Even reading this story makes hair to stand on the end. What an amazing story. No wonder they say that there is no better elixir for mind than reading such enchanting stories from scriptures like Ramayana and in turn learning great lessons.

Complete Ramayana can be found online on this link - http://valmikiramayan.net/

Guru – given by nature upon birth

Guruvirahita aso naye (from Daasbodh) – one should not remain without Guru – advise saints. Having Guru is more a mental state than physical state. Nature already provides Guru to every human being. But to know this Guru requires great learning, blessings of elders and faith in scriptures and saints. Scriptures describe about this guru, given by nature, through three important sentences – maatrudevo bhava, pitrudevo bhava and acharya devo bhava. First guru for every person is his/her mother. With the blessings of mother one gets to know the second guru i.e. father and with the blessings of father one gets to know third guru i.e. acharya (teacher or preceptor) and through preceptor one gets on the path to the knowledge of Self – atmagyan, the ultimate knowledge that one can achieve in human birth.

Being born with human body is just a natural phenomenon. But the real birth is the birth of desire for moksha. If this birth does not take place then all the time spent on earth is a waste of time. Through mother’s body a human body is born, but with mother’s blessings a desire for moksha is born. The success of all great people can be attributed to their mother’s blessings. It was Mother Jijabai who, through story telling, instilled in her faithful son Shivaba the desire to establish a great ethical kingdom. Shivaba became known to the world as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. It was Mother Putlibai whose strict insistence on speaking truth instilled truthfulness in Mohandas who became known to the world as Mahatma Gandhi.

There are four goals prescribed for every human being – dharma, artha, kama and moksha. Through one’s own efforts one may be able to achieve success in first three goals i.e. dharma, artha, kama. We may find many examples who have achieved success in these goals. But it is very difficult to achieve success in the fourth goal i.e. moksha. The challenge is it is not possible to find examples of achievers of this goal or to put it in other words it is very difficult to recognize the achiever of this goal because it is about getting liberation from the cycle of birth and death. This is where the line of faith starts. One needs a great faith in understanding the importance of this goal and also faith in scriptures that prescribe this goal. In fact one may even read all scriptures that prescribe this goal, but to really appreciate and pursue this goal one needs grace of Guru.

To achieve grace or blessings of Guru it is important to remember Guru. And they say one remembers Guru only through Guru’s grace. The easiest way to attract grace or blessings of Guru is to stick to the upasana prescribed by him. It doesn’t matter if we have learned all scriptures or not, but it does matter if we are following or not following instructions of Guru. Guru instructs various upasana depending on personality of disciple. Instruction could be as short as lighting a lamp in front of God or as large as studying all scriptures. Difficulty or easiness of instruction does not matter, what matters is strict and sincere following of at least one instruction.

Guru Pournima is a day to examine ourselves and realign our efforts to perform upsasana. They say at least on this day if one does what Guru has instructed to do it helps in long way.

Wish you all Happy Guru Pournima which is occurring on this Friday July 31, 2015.

Hitakaarak karma makes life worthwhile

They say human birth is greatest of all births. Humans are the leaders of the universe. They are endowed with the unique ability to think and speak so that they can guide the self and other beings to higher purpose of life.

The goal of intellect and mind is to find out the purpose of human birth and live the life for that purpose. Living for the purpose is what is hitakaarak – beneficial, which is different from pleasing. What is pleasing may not be beneficial and vice versa. It is important to maintain the balance of pleasing and beneficial activities. For example bittergourd is bitter in taste but inclusion of small amount of it in diet is beneficial for health whereas spicy food is pleasing to tongue but excess intake of it can ruin the health. In the same way living for the higher purpose may not be pleasing as it demands sacrifice of personal selfish objectives. But the slow practice of this sacrifice is greatly beneficial in progress to the next desired higher level for human being. We have received this human body after going through the cycle of 84 lakhs of species. In all creations in this universe - i.e. in all 84 lakhs species - human specie is considered as zenith of creation. It is in human birth that, with the unique abilities of thinking and speaking, one can get to know the creator of this universe and become one with Him. Another great thing happens, in this effort of knowing creator, is the escape from the cycle of birth and death through 84 lakh species.

By nature the bodily actions are driven by trigunas – satvik, rajas and tamas. Each guna has its own purpose in the ecosystem. The mixture of these gunas in varied percentage drives the quality of action and hence its outcome. Scriptures advise that to elevate our consciousness we should develop satvik tendencies. It is the dominance of satvik guna that helps to experience the closeness with the creator of universe.

Usually when it comes to becoming satvik the first thing considered is food, that is eating satvik food. That is true. It is famous saying - you become what you eat. So eating satvik food is definitely the most important activity in an effort to become satvik. However food is just one part of it. Anna in Sanskrit is not limited to food. It means whatever we intake through ten senses. So in addition to food it is important to pay attention to other activities such as thinking, listening, speaking and daily duties. All these activities also need to be transformed into satvik activities. That is thinking, listening and reading satvik content, engaging into satvik activities and also being in company of satvik people.

To do this transformation Saints advise to use our own discretion to divide 24 hours of the day in such a way that one can practice spirituality. For example on an average one could spend 6 hours for sleep, 12 hours for worldly activities, 4 hours for family and remaining 2 hours for the spiritual pursuit. They say these 2 hours for spiritual pursuit can greatly help one to become strong and get the most required focus to achieve higher purpose of life.

Scriptures are the great sources of information to find out about not only spiritual activities but even how to conduct oneself in family and society. Two of the most important and widely read scriptures of Indian culture are Bhagwad Gita and Srimad Bhagwatam. Bhagwat Gita, as we all know, is the famous dialogue between Lord Shrikrishna and Arjuna on the battlefield. This dialogue reveals many secrets of creation and also describes in detail the goal of human birth and importance of satvik guna. Srimad Bhagwatam is known as literal incarnation of Lord Shrikrishna meaning Lord Shrikrishna in the form of book. It contains the glorifying stories of Lord Shrikrishna’s pastime as well as stories of all ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu.

Shravan i.e. listening to these glories of God is the first step from nine steps of devotion i.e. nava vidha bhakti. By regular listening of stories of God one gets into the second step i.e. kirtan i.e. singing the glory of God and by regular listening and singing glories of God one gets into third step i.e. Vishnu smaran i.e. continuous remembrance of Lord Vishnu. And once one gets established into this step, they say that one progresses through remaining six steps without much effort. Remaining six steps are archana (worship), vandana (salutation), paadsevana (worshiping lotus feet of God), dasya (serving the God ), sakhya (friendship with God) and atmanivedana (self surrender).

Engaging in spiritual activities is not only beneficial to an individual but it is beneficial to one’s own parents, family as well as society.

Idol worship – the path to never ending happiness

Every human being or for that matter every being is bound by effects of karma. This binding is called bhavabandha. Every karma, i.e. action, results in effects which in turn become cause for either binding or freedom depending on motive of karma.

There are three types of karmas

dushkarma – a bad karma, karma that is performed with an intention of hurting of other being and hence results in paapa (sin). paapa becomes cause for suffering.

sukarma – a good karma, karma performed with good intention in return expecting to earn punya (merit). punya becomes cause for material happiness.

akarma – a karma that is performed without any expectation. Because such karma is performed without any expectation this results neither in paapa nor in punya. Since the only intention of this karma is to please God, fruits of this karma are determined by God himself. People who perform such actions are indeed saints and they experience happiness that is not dependent on any matter.

One of the names of Lord Krishna is swabhakta-chittaranjana – i.e. one who takes responsibility of entertaining the mind of his devotees who perform all their actions only as a service to Lord Krishna without any expectation thereof.

To be able to reach a stage to perform akarma, i.e. karma without expectations, the mind should be filled with nothing but the form of God. When mind is filled with the thoughts of God, and God alone, then every karma performed becomes an offering to God and hence becomes a cause for freedom from all bad or good effects of karma and ultimately results in vishranti i.e. peaceful rest.

And this is where idol worship helps. It is a way to get into practice of performing dutiful actions with only intention of pleasing God which in turn results in mind occupying only thoughts of God.

Idol worship starts with inviting God and then performing sixteen or five rituals of hospitality as listed below.

aavahan (inviting God), aasan (offering seat to God), padyam (washing God’s feet), arghyam (offering water to God and washing hands of God) , achaman (offering God water for drinking), snaan (offering bath to God), vastra (offering clothes to God), upavita (offering sacred thread to God), gandha (applying sandalwood paste to God’s forehead), pushpa (offering flower to God), dhup (waving an incense stick in front of God), deep (waving light in front of God), anna or naivedya (offering food to God), pradakshina (circumventing God), namaskar (offering salute) and visarjan (offering bon voyage to God)

Methods of performing idol worship

One of the very important concepts of Indian culture is idol worship. It is one of the nine steps of devotion nava vidha bhakti. Idol worship is the way to establish loving relationship with God. It is all about establishing mental relationship with God. All great sages, devotees achieved success in their spiritual journey – a journey of spirit towards God – through idol worship. For spiritual development it is important to condition body, mind and speech. Idol worship greatly helps in this process. When performed with devotion it can bring positive transformation in individual and society.

There are two methods of performing idol worship. The main method is shodashopchar (shodash means sixteen and upachar means ritual) puja which is a detailed idol worship where sixteen rituals are performed and the other is panchopachar (pancha means five) puja where five rituals are performed.

Shodashopachar puja - This is a detailed puja in which following sixteen rituals are performed for God.

aavahan (inviting God), aasan (offering seat to God), padyam (washing God’s feet), arghyam (offering water to God and washing hands of God) , achaman (offering God water for drinking), snaan (offering bath to God), vastra (offering clothes to God), upavita (offering sacred thread to God), gandha (applying sandalwood paste to God’s forehead), pushpa (offering flower to God), dhup (waving an incense stick in front of God), deep (waving light in front of God), anna or naivedya (offering food to God), pradakshina (circumventing God), namaskar (offering salute) and visarjan (offering bon voyage to God)

Panchopachar puja – This is a puja in which following five rituals are performed for God. In fact one can quickly perform panchopachar puja by chanting following shloka and offering five rituals.

gandha (applying sandalwood paste to God’s forehead), pushpa (offering flower to God), dhup (waving an incense stick in front of God), deep (waving light in front of God), naivedya (offering food to God)

One can choose to perform a type of puja as per time available. Panchopachar puja takes hardly five minute, however these five minutes can bring gradual positive transformation in the performer of puja.

Rituals - the beneficial activities

All the rituals in Indian culture start with sankalpa that describes when, where, why and what of that ritual. For example we say manmatha naam samvatsare meaning we are performing this ritual in the year with name manmatha. (More information about what is samvatsara can be found here). Then we say bharatakhande meaning we are performing this ritual in the region of bharata, then we say shri parameshwara prityartham meaning we are performing this ritual to please parameshwara and finally we mention actual ritual name for example shri satyanarayana pujanam karishye meaning we are performing satyanarayana puja. The key here is shri parameshwara prityartham which is the main objective of all these rituals – that is to please parameshwara. If parameshwara is pleased then the life becomes livable as it brings all the good things such as health, wealth, stability, knowledge, relations and most important fulfillment of life. All these things are very important for leading happy life. So, one can see that these rituals bring lot of benefits not only for individual but for whole family. If performed in the right spirit, these rituals can bring long lasting benefits not only to the family but to the society as well. One may wonder how society can benefit from the ritual performed by an individual. There is a famous proverb – “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. The basis of all good things in life is earnings of punya (merit). It is because of punya that one is born healthy or one is born in good family or one is born with good intellect. Not only that, it is because of punya that there can be balance of all these things in life. By performing ritual one earns punya and becomes successful in life, and then when others look at the success of an individual and reason for that success, they are also inspired to perform such punya earning ritual and by doing that they also earn punya and eventually success. That is how individual and society are both benefited.

One of the most important point of these rituals is that these rituals cannot offer their desired benefits unless they reach their true completion. And the ritual cannot reach its true completion unless grihalakshmi i.e. wife of a family person, who is performing ritual, touches her right hand to her husband’s right hand at the end of ritual. Or for that matter every offering that a person makes to god during ritual can be said to be complete only when his wife touches his hand. That indicates what great role women play in the family. It shows that women have to be respected at all the times as without their support family and society cannot prosper.

The three main gods of Indian culture are Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh and their respective consorts namely Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati. Establishing loving relationship with these gods can be greatly beneficial. However, ritual that is performed to please each of these gods is different. Brahma is to be pleased by performing rishi yadnya i.e. by studying religious scriptures. Vishnu is to be pleased by offering him tulasi patras (basil leaves) while chanting his thousand names (Vishnu sahasranaam) during Satyanarayana puja and Shiva is to be pleased by performing abhishek on shivalinga while chanting rudra (rudra namakam and rudra chamakam).

Importance of rituals is diminishing because their benefits are not well understood. It will be greatly beneficial to the society if everybody gets into practice of performing these rituals with devotion. Temples are the places that can play a great role of an educational institution to educate people about these rituals. It is the temple where people can see and learn the rituals and then perform them in their own home. Now one may wonder if temple is already performing rituals, why one again has to perform them in their homes. All these rituals contain steps to chant the suktas from vedas for example purusha sukta, shree sukta, rudra and divine stotras such as vishnusahasranaama, lalitasahasranaama etc. The sound waves that emanate while chanting these suktas and stotras help create positive environment that bring peace and that is why it is important to perform these rituals in individual homes as well. Shrine in home brings peace in home and shrine in temple brings peace in society.